


Debts Owed and Paid

by gosshawks



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Injury Recovery, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 08:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12861006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gosshawks/pseuds/gosshawks
Summary: [AU of The Lovers in Julian’s Route] Muriel saves the Apprentice when she falls into the eel infested waters of the aqueduct. She recuperates at his hut in the woods and finally has a conversation with him that consists of more than cryptic warnings.





	Debts Owed and Paid

Kate wakes to a rooster cawing. Morning sunlight streams through the window, warm and pale yellow, catching dust motes as they float lazily in an unfamiliar room. She tries to sit up without thinking and forces herself right back down on the bed, breathless from pain. In pieces, it comes back to her: falling into the aqueduct, slick ghostly figures swimming around her in the dark red water. Pain in her side, and blood. Huge hands pulling her up and out. A scarred face drawn with worry looming above her, half hidden under shaggy black hair and a fur shroud. **  
**

Then, darkness. 

The giant from before, who had cautioned her—they’d saved her? And they’d brought her…here. Where was here? 

She looks around, moving as little as possible. She appears to be in the bedroom of a hut. The furniture is handmade, rough but cozy and clearly made for someone large. The bed itself is massive. She can see into the next room a little: there’s a stove with a kettle atop it, just beginning to steam. She can smell trees and myrrh and hear chickens clucking. The woods, then? Must be. 

The kettle whistles.

Footsteps and the sound of scraping chains approach. The giant appears and goes to the stove, removing the kettle from heat. Kate watches them warily as they methodically make a pot of tea, absorbed in the task. They turn, mug in hand, and freeze as they see her. 

“You’re awake,” they say woodenly. 

“More or less. Where am I?” she says. 

“In the woods,” they say, lowering their gaze as they leave the steaming mug on the table beside the bed, as if to show they aren’t a threat. “Drink this. It will help you sleep.” 

She glances over at the drink with suspicion. “…Who are you?” 

“I’ve known your master for a long time. I’m called Muriel,” they say.

Ah. She relaxes some. Asra. Even the mention of him makes her feel as though he’s close, as though he’s looking out for her. “I’m Kate,” she says. “…Thank you. You saved me, didn’t you?” 

Muriel’s one visible eye looks over at her. “You’re lucky,” they say, sitting in the chair at her bedside almost apologetically. Like they don’t want her to have to crane her neck to look at them. “If it had been anyone else they wouldn’t have been able to do much for you.” Their voice is low, rumbling. They only speak to her in warnings and riddles but somehow their voice is comforting. She thinks that it could put her to sleep.

“How did you do it?” she asks hazily. Sitting up with care, she drinks hesitantly from the cup. It tastes like chamomile and lavender, delicate and flowery and a little sweet. 

They shrug. “I pulled it off.”

Kate chokes on her tea. “…Oh,“ she coughs. Vampire eels have a viselike bite. Anyone who could pry one’s jaws apart must be _very_ strong.

“I have—…I know a wise woman,” Muriel says. “I went to her before I brought you here. She gave me a poultice to help you heal. But the wound was not…clean. It will take time.” Right. She remembers, from one of her brief moments of consciousness, a wizened, smiling old woman talking to her as she made her drink something from a bottle. _You’ll be all right. It’s a good thing he was there._

She nods, sighing heavily as she takes another sip of tea. “I doubt I could go far if I wanted to.” It could reopen her wounds all too easily. And even without worrying about that, she knows she’s much too tired to move. 

“Rest,” he says, rising. “I’ll have something for you to eat when you wake.” 

Yawning, Kate settles back against the pillows. Almost immediately, the world around her fades and she falls pleasantly into darkness.

  


When she wakes again it’s afternoon and the room is bathed in golden light. Her vision is blurry, though, and she’s still half asleep. But the pain has lessened already. Kate twists her torso carefully, testing the wound. Not too bad, she thinks, wincing. Movement in the next room catches her eye.

_Oh, is that a dog?_

“Oh,” she mumbles happily. “Hey. Come here, pup! Good boy!” She whistles and pats the bed for good measure. The hazy figure snuffles and approaches, tail wagging. There’s no cure for a bad night like petting a dog, she thinks with relief as she offers her hand. 

Things begin to come into focus. The blurry shape before her solidifies into a large, sleek mass of fur and claws and teeth, and she realizes it is not, in fact, a dog. It is very, very much not a dog.

It is a wolf. 

Kate flinches in alarm as the wolf licks her hand, as tame as a puppy. After a moment, awed and unable to resist, she runs the fingers of her free hand through its fur and gives it a scritch behind the ear. 

“You’ve met,” says Muriel. He appears in the doorway and watches her with curiosity. 

“Is he yours?” Thinking he would warn her if she were in any real danger, she scratches under its chin as it pants. 

“He’s not anyone’s,” Muriel says firmly. “He’s my friend. He won’t hurt you.” 

“Good. That’s kind of him,” she says. The wolf stands at her bedside patiently as she strokes his fur, as if sensing she’s in need of comfort. 

“Are you hungry?” he asks, hovering in the threshold. 

Her stomach rumbles loudly. “ _Starved_.”

Muriel nods before disappearing into the other room. She hears a meal being prepared, eggs cracking, meat sizzling as it’s placed in the pan. The wolf pads away at the sound and sits at his feet expectantly. 

She hears Muriel scolding him. “There’s too much fat in it for you,” he says. “It will make you sick.” The wolf whines, butting its snout against his leg. The man scoffs, defeated, and offers him half of a piece of bacon from his palm. Hungry jaws snap it up immediately. “Don’t ask for more.” With a satisfied noise, the wolf licks its mouth and ambles away. Kate muffles a laugh with her hand. It’s an all too familiar scene to someone who lives with a menagerie of cats. 

Muriel comes in a minute later, carrying two wooden trays. _Mm._ The smell makes her stomach squirm. He places the tray across her lap, plate piled with toast, fried eggs, crispy bacon (almost burnt, just the way she likes it). She wolfs it down almost faster than she can chew. It’s hearty and savory and just the thing she needs after a miserable night of blood loss and pain and bitter healing draughts. Muriel sits and eats his own supper quietly. He’s still wearing the fur cloak, she notices, but it’s draped about his shoulders with the hood pulled back. For once, she can clearly see his face.

Scars, some fine, some thick and knotted and stark, lace across his brown skin. Muriel notices her gaze, green eyes meeting her own. Kate swallows, embarrassed. “…What happened there?” she asks, drawing a line in the air over her torso to mimic the scars across his chest. 

He glances down to see which one she means. “A tiger,” he says, and continues to eat. 

“Oh,” she says, bewildered. Oh. It clicks. The scars, the chains, the furs— 

“…You were a gladiator.” Her chest tightens painfully. For all his dread filled warnings and sheer size there’s such a gentleness to him. She can’t imagine what it must have been like, spending his life wading through a sea of blood.

Muriel stiffens, staring at his plate. After a pause, he nods.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. It’s an achingly inadequate thing to say. He shrugs, mopping up some yolk with a piece of toast.

“It’s over now,” he says, mouth full. “I like it here. It’s quiet. And I’m alone.”

“I heard chickens.” 

“Them I don’t mind. It’s other company I’m not interested in.” Muriel finishes the last of his supper and stands abruptly. Suddenly it strikes Kate how much of an imposition she must be, sleeping in his bed and eating his food and demanding his conversation. Reminding him constantly why he left the rest of the world behind. “I’ll be out with the chickens,” he says, and leaves. 

She watches him go, moving the tray aside and swearing under her breath. _You always have to open your big mouth, don’t you? You can’t just let things be!_ Laboriously, Kate gets to her feet, biting back a groan as the blood rushes to her head. She steadies herself against the wardrobe and starts to make her way to the door.

The rest of the hut is just as homey as the bedroom: there are shelves full of vials, food packets, jars of preserves. Fresh herbs—chamomile, sage, rosemary, yarrow—dry in a rack above the crackling hearth. An unfinished wooden table with two chairs sits between the hearth and the kitchen. Who visits him out here? Asra, maybe? She wonders why he’s never mentioned him before. 

Kate makes her way outside, blinking in the sun. The hut sits in a small clearing in the woods, and in the orange late afternoon light it looks like something out of a fairytale. Cicadas buzz in the trees, and the grass is dotted with small blue wildflowers. A breeze starts up, running like fingers through her hair and bringing with it the wet, earthy smell of Forest. She understands, overwhelmingly, why he doesn’t like to leave.

An enclosure of wood and wire just outside holds six chickens and a spacious coop. Muriel sits among them, letting them eat from his palm and telling them softly to behave. A fat brown hen settles in his lap and he strokes her feathers with the utmost care. He moves so gently, so deliberately. He doesn’t want to scare or to hurt. Not her, not his wolf, not his chickens.

“…Can I feed them, too?” she asks.

He jolts and looks up at her (though it’s hardly looking up—even sitting he comes almost to her shoulder). The hen ruffles her feathers and squawks angrily. Muriel nods, soothing her by petting her back, and points to a bag of feed outside the pen. Kate grabs a handful and steps inside, immediately swarmed by chickens. Industrious beaks gobble up the kernels that spill through the gaps in her fingers and onto the ground. She picks her way across the pen, making sure not to step on any of them. 

She sits with Muriel in silence, letting the chickens nibble from her palm. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him relax. She’s an interloper in his hermit’s life, she knows that now. Silence and stillness aren’t particular skills of hers, but she hopes he’ll understand she’s trying.

Reaching out, she strokes the breast feathers of a white chicken. It nips at her hand and she laughs. The too-loud sound cuts through the hushed atmosphere of the forest like a knife. But Muriel smiles as he nudges the chicken away with his massive palm. 

“They mean well,” he says. 

“I don’t mind.” She glances over at him, smiling. “How does it work, living with chickens and a wolf?” 

He pets the cooing hen in his lap. “…With difficulty.” That makes her laugh again, and he lowers his eyes with a flustered, endearing smile. 

She sits with him awhile longer, watching the sun start to creep below the tops of the trees. As twilight turns to dusk and the fireflies start to come out, Muriel herds the chickens into the coop and locks them in for the night. He helps her to her feet and they make their way back to the hut. Exhaustion overtakes her by the time she lays back on the bed, legs dangling over the side. 

Muriel takes a blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed. “Good night,” he says, nodding to her as he turns to the door.

“Oh—I’m sorry, I don’t want to put you out—“ Kate says, embarrassed. It isn’t as if she’d been conscious enough to protest the night before, but now…

“I’ve slept worse places than the rug,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t take up much space. Really.” With a low grunt, Kate swings her legs up onto the bed and climbs under the covers.

Muriel looks her over briefly and sighs. “…I suppose not.” He sits on the opposite side of the bed, pulling off his boots and draping his fur cloak over the chair. She watches him blearily, not trying to be nosy, but she can’t help it. There’s such a domestic thrill in following someone’s routine as they prepare for bed. She does the same thing to Asra and he always catches her and laughs. He never asks her to stop, though. It helps her wind down.

Muriel blows out the candle and lays on his side, his back to her. The chain on the spiked gorget around his neck clanks loudly as he shifts. Does he…sleep with it on? Can he get it off at all?

Cautiously, Kate reaches out and presses a hand to the spot just below it, between his shoulder blades. He recoils at her touch and she pulls back. 

“I could take that off,” she says quietly. “If you want.” 

Muriel’s still for so long she’s not sure if he’s ignoring her or if he’s drifted off. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nods. “Okay, then, sit up.” He does so without a word, watching her in the dark like a caged animal. Swallowing, Kate sits in front of him. She runs her fingers along the seams of the collar and, taking a breath, clears her mind. Glowing marks spread across the metal. Two locks click, one after the other, and she starts to undo the gorget at the joints. 

Not ungently, Muriel takes her wrists and lowers her hands. “No.” He pulls off the collar himself. For a moment he holds it in both hands, his face unreadable, then drops it with a _thunk_ beside the bed. He cracks his neck and stretches with a sigh, settling again. 

“…Thank you. That was…kind.” He sounds like he’s waiting for her to ask something of him in return. 

“I owe you,” Kate murmurs, laying on her side of the bed. “Now we’re just closer to being even.” Closing her eyes, she feels…she isn’t sure how to describe it. Unencumbered.

She’s almost asleep when she feels a large hand take hers. Muriel’s skin is rough and calloused and crossed with old, fine scars, but it’s warm. “Thank you,” he says again, his voice hoarse. Too tired to speak, she squeezes his hand reassuringly before sleep claims her. 


End file.
